The Devonport Strikers have taken another step forward in an attempt to help further develop soccer players from the North-West Coast with the introduction of a new program for 2017.

The Devonport Strikers Academy will officially start up next month with the sole focus of giving junior players from around the region a structured environment to become the best possible player they can be.

The club have tied in the academy with their successful Skill Acquisition Phase Program which will also start up once again in May but have introduced and expanded on the idea to cater for players even younger.

Devonport Strikers president Rod Andrews said the introduction of the academy would be an exciting thing for the club and the aim was to cater and develop juniors from a younger age to help them develop earlier.

“It’s going to be an exciting chapter moving forward,” Andrews said.

“The idea of the program is to develop our juniors, just as it does in the SAP Program.

“You’ve only got to look at guys like Dom Smith and Jesse Dance in the seniors to see how well the junior programs can be.”

“But we want to grow and expand it even further and the group we haven’t catered for as of yet are around that 5-8 age so we have introduced the Tiny Feet program.

“It’s a great opportunity for young kids and it’s based on ball mastering and it’s the natural extension and the plan is to open the academy for 13 to 16 year olds as well which we will look to do next year.”

Andrews said the program would be run by the club’s senior coach Chris Gallo and the idea was to look at the bigger picture in terms of junior development and how to most effectively develop players from a young age.

“It’s a really exciting idea driven by Chris Gallo who saw the need for it when he came to our club and he will oversee it.

“It’s really about looking at the bigger picture and plenty of people have written on the sports theory before.

“The belief is and the thing we are looking at is that juniors need 10,000 hours of informed practice from the ages of five to 15 if they want to be the best player they can be.

“So the closer you get to that number with informed practice and experience, the better off you will be.”

The Devonport Strikers next phase of the SAP Program will commence on Tuesday, May 2 and will be held on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s for under-19s to under-12s.

The Tiny Feet program will commence on Monday, May 1 and will cater for juniors from five to eight years of age.

The Strikers are asking for any junior players or families interested in either program to contact the soccer club via email at devonportstrikers@bigpond.com.